Q&A: Monsanto’s Robb Fraley

Wednesday

Aug 25, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 25, 2010 at 9:15 AM

As a co-inventor of Roundup Ready soybeans, the herbicide-resistant beans that now account for almost 90 percent of the U.S. soybean market, Robb Fraley can be credited with starting a revolution in agriculture.

Resistant to Roundup herbicide, the soybean can grow freely while weeds are killed by a herbicide application. Now the chief technology officer for St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., Fraley took time for an interview while visiting a Monsanto test plot in Monmouth, Ill.

Steve Tarter

As a co-inventor of Roundup Ready soybeans, the herbicide-resistant beans that now account for almost 90 percent of the U.S. soybean market, Robb Fraley can be credited with starting a revolution in agriculture.

Resistant to Roundup herbicide, the soybean can grow freely while weeds are killed by a herbicide application. Now the chief technology officer for St. Louis-based Monsanto Co., Fraley took time for an interview while visiting a Monsanto test plot in Monmouth, Ill.

Q: How did you get your start?

A: I grew up in central Illinois. At the University of Illinois, I knew I wanted to get into science.

Q: What led to developing biotech seed?

A: In the early ‘80s, I went for my doctorate to the University of California-San Francisco, where the biotech industry got its start. Biotech pioneers like Bill Rutter and Herbert Boyer had their labs there at the same time I did. When it came to gene-splicing, I was interested in an agricultural application.

Q: How has Monsanto changed since you started there?

A: When I came to Monsanto after graduation, it was one of the few companies interested in biotech research. There were only three or four scientists on staff. There are 3,500 now.

Q: Could you discuss the research that led to the Roundup Ready soybean?

A: Monsanto was already making Roundup herbicide. What we figured out was which gene to use that (provided resistance) and could be put in corn, soybean or cotton plants. We’ve turned it into a product that’s changed farming.

Q: What about the problems of developing weed resistance to Roundup?

A: Agriculture will continue to evolve. Resistance is something we anticipated and planned on. Roundup has been around for 40 years. Out of 200 weeds it controls, only five or six are of concern. But we take that seriously.

Q: How do you spend your time with Monsanto these days?

A: I spend more time with farmers than I do in the lab. I’m involved in communications with growers about what’s coming in the way of new seed technology.